Hands painting hands

I’ve taken on a new series recently. I realized that quite a lot of my work has hands in it. They are part of the stories that are told through my art. A lot can be told through the expression of hands. With this discovery, I decided to paint hands on purpose… Instead of being a vehicle to tell the story. They ARE the story. I debuted six new paintings at the Hartford Open Studio in November. I’ve since done two more paintings to compliment that series. I will continue to explore hands in the future. Here are a few photos of the artwork framed. (I’m not a great photographer, so please bear with me!)

The ones on the bottom are the new ones. The guitar playing hands belong to fellow painter, Jason Werner. And the “I love you” sign language hand is my own hand. This one is painted in particular for a show coming up here at Artspace. You can read about it here.

Here is a close up version of the hands with a guitar:

Art for the Open Heart

February 9, 6-9pm
Artspace Gallery
555 Asylum Ave, Hartford, CT

I will be participating in this exhibition coming up at Artspace. It is a fundraiser to help Tao LaBossiere pay  for his open heart surgery that he will need in February. Tao has been instrumental in the growth of Artspace gallery and the Hartford art community as a whole. He has been a resident of Artspace since it’s inception in 1997, and is the volunteer director of the gallery.

I have created this piece specifically for this event. “I love you” Painted with oils. There is a heart in the background, it’s kind of hard to tell with the lighting, but it’s there. Love and all. ❤

From the Facebook event page:

Not to be missed exhibit will feature hundreds of artworks by more than one hundred local artists. $10+ donation at the door.

Music by DJ Jon Eastman
Wine presented by Two Guys and a Lotta Wine
Food by Salute, Fire ‘n Spice, Ginza Japanese Restaurant

This is a benefit for Tao LaBossiere’s Open Heart Surgery.

20% or more of any sales will be generously donated to the “Tao LaBossiere Open Heart Fund.” ALL event proceeds will benefit the “Tao LaBossiere Open Heart Fund”. Tao is in need of open heart surgery and his catastrophic insurance will leave him with more than $45,000+ in medical bills. We are creating an art show that benefits all participating artists, as well as a Benefit for Tao, that will help him to avoid financial ruin from this unexpected necessary medical condition.

Tao LaBossiere has been volunteering to help artists and build up the artist community through ArtSpace Hartford Gallery since 1997. He is the volunteer force behind 18-21 art shows each year for the past 15 years, each attended by hundreds equaling thousands of lives touched yearly, by Tao’s assistance. If you have ever been part of an art show at Hartford ArtSpace Gallery, or if your friends have ever even attended an event, then you have directly benefited by his volunteer efforts. Additionally, you should note his years of volunteer support to the artists of Hartford Artists Open Studio Weekend, CowParade, West Hartford Art League, and Oil Drum Art. He is humbled and grateful for any and all help you decide to freely give.

If anyone would prefer to donate directly in lieu of participation, feel free to send a check to:
TD Bank
c/o Tao LaBossiere Open Heart Fund
203 Trumbull Street
Hartford, CT 06103

Or donate online at:
http://www.giveforward.com/taolabossiereopenheartfund

For those artists looking to participate:

$20 Entry Donation per piece, no limit to number of pieces an artist may submit. Size limit of 4 ft in any direction. Diptychs and Triptychs count as individual pieces.

First come, first served until the gallery is full, salon-style. We will direct you in hanging the work as it comes in and reserve the right to tweak the show to it’s best display for all.

Art Drop off:
Monday, Feb 4, 5 to 7 pm
Tuesday, Feb 5, 5 to 7 pm
and by appointment (contact Amy LaBossiere 860-543-3244)

Hope to see you there!! 

Art Festival this weekend!

Come visit me at the Unionville Festival, Sunday, September 26th! I will be set up along the river with other local artists behind Matthew’s Restaurant, 55 Mill St., from noon to 5pm.

Come support local artists! I will be selling prints, cards and original works of art!

Hope to see you all there!

Tiny Art Director

I had a conversation today with a little girl about a tiny monster that was blue. I wondered what he looked like and if she would agree. That made me remember a blog I came across awhile ago, called Tiny Art Director.

Bill Zeman is an illustrator and constantly has projects thrown at him by his five year old daughter (the Tiny Art Director). The blog was eventually turned into a book and the things that she says are absolutely hilarious!

It helps to start at the beginning of the blog, when she was younger (around 2), so scroll down and try to start at the bottom, instead of the top.

Here are a few links for the Tiny Art Director:

TAD blog

TAD on Facebook

TAD on Twitter

Boston Science Museum… of Art?

I went to the Boston Science Museum this weekend with my sister and her husband and we had a great time. It had been years since we have all been there. The last time was probably 20 years ago on a school field trip. Everything was hands on, and we were all having so much fun. Well, now that we are older, and we already learned most of this stuff in grade school, the regular exhibits weren’t as fun. But we still went to the butterfly garden, and the electricity show. (It was cool, but again, much cooler when you’re ten.)

So we went walking through the museum trying to find something interesting. And I came upon an exhibit of artwork called Running the Numbers by Chris Jordan. I had heard of his work before, but never seen it in person. He creates manipulated digital photographs that represent statistics that are hard to imagine. Once you see his photographs, you no longer have to try to imagine it, it’s there for you to see.

For example, below is a close up and full shot of Cans Seurat, which depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the United States every thirty seconds.

This next one looks like pipes:

but it’s actually Plastic Cups. There are one million plastic cups shown here, the number used on airline flights in the US every six hours.

This one is called Gyre. It shows 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic that enter the world’s oceans every hour. All of the plastic shown was collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Statistics are numbers, and numbers can be hard to visualize. Chris Jordan turns these statistics into visuals for you and the result is staggering. They are beautiful and grotesque at the same time. Beautiful works of art that portray the grotesque nature of our consumerism. To see more of his influential work go to Chris Jordan’s website.

Pencils… in Sculpture?

Awhile back, I wrote a blog about Jennifer Maestre. I admired her work and since then I have discovered her on etsy, where my boyfriend bought me a beautiful necklace made from colored pencils. Her work is amazing. It consists of colored pencils sharpened and sewn together. It’s prickly and organic all at the same time. It was really great to be able to actually meet her! Here is a photo of Jenn in front of her artwork:

And more pics of her sculptures:

We also discovered another artist that makes sculptures using pencils…. except instead of creating sculptures with pencils Dalton Ghetti creates sculptures from pencils… All of his work is sculpted from a single pencil. You have to see it to believe it.

This is a carpenter’s pencil  with a very detailed boot carved into the lead:

This pencil has a tiny spool of thread with a needle. The thread actually goes through the eye of the needle. The needle is carved from the lead of the pencil.

This is the alphabet carved into each piece of lead on top of 26 different pencils.

Here is a detail of the alphabet:

This one is my favorite:

At first, I didn’t think much of it. I thought, “why would he put a chain on a pencil?” But then I realized, that he didn’t put a chain on a pencil… He carved the lead of this pencil into chain links. This is one pencil. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?? Dalton Ghetti is a carpenter by trade, and spends a few hours a day sculpting these little masterpieces. He doesn’t use a magnifying glass, but there is a box full of them at the museum so you can see the amount of detail that goes into these pencils.

I went to the museum to see one artist that I admired and I discovered a new one. Both using pencils, in completely different ways. This show opened on April 2, 2010 and will be open until August 29, 2010.

C.F. Payne – American Illustrator

Yesterday afternoon C.F. Payne came to the University of Hartford and put on a lecture. Payne is one of the great living American illustrators around. He spoke about how illustration is the second oldest profession… which I guess I never really thought about before, but after they learned how to kill animals and eat them, they told about it on the walls of the caves. Stories told centuries ago are still around and telling the same story, just as it was.

He is a modest man, even though his work has graced the covers of Rolling Stone, Time, People, Sports Illustrated, MAD Magazine (which inspired him as a kid), and Readers Digest, among others. He has illustrated ten children’s books including two written by John Lithgow. His work has been compared to Norman Rockwell, because he has a way of capturing a slice of life with personality.

He is excellent with faces and doing slight exaggerations. He says, “If you do it right, the drawing will look more like the person than they do”. He mentioned that getting a project done on time is the most important thing you can do. You have a deadline and you have to stick to it. This is something that I already knew but I liked how he put it… “One ‘Oh sh*t’ can erase a whole lot of ‘atta boys'”.

One more thing that I’d like to point out about being an illustrator. You can do it forever. It’s a job that you love to do. Get paid for drawing!! Today you will be better than you were yesterday. As an artist you are always improving and changing. The more you draw, the better you become.

Here’s a link to his website so you can see how amazing he is… I’m sure you’ll recognize some of his work! www.cfpayne.com

He did a demo after the lecture showing off his signature “C.F. Payne Technique” Here’s a photo of him, sorry it’s not the best quality, I forgot my camera, and had to use my phone!

The C.F. Payne technique is an involved process that sounds like it takes a longer amount of time than it actually does. First he does a drawing, then acrylic washes which lay in the basic colors. He then does a watercolor wash and pulls out the highlights. When that dries, he does an oil wash and erases out the highlights. After that is complete, Payne will spray the board with fixative and start adding highlights and more color alternatively with acrylic washes and colored pencils until it is complete.

It creates an amazingly quick lay-down of the mid-tones, so that he can get right into the meat of the painting. It was amazing to see him work.

He is an icon of American illustration and it was great to be able to hear about his experiences as an illustrator, and how it made him grow into who he is today.

www.cfpayne.com

Connecticut Creative

See my artwork on Connecticut Creative!

Go here for the complete article –> www.connecticutcreative.com

Connecticut Creative is an online magazine that promotes the arts and culture in Connecticut. There is a social networking element to it as well. Sign up today!

The original illustration is in colored pencil, 13″ x 10″ and was created for the postcard that will be distributed throughout Connecticut to promote the website.

Open Studios!!

I will be showing my artwork at Artsake Gallery during the Open Studios of Northeastern CT this year. From 10-5 on November 28-29, and December 5-6, many art studios in the northeastern corner of CT are opening their doors for visitors! Get out your wallets and support local artisans from the area! Get a loved one a handmade gift they will never forget.

Artists of all kinds will be there: painters, woodworkers, glass, jewelery, printmaking, ceramics, textiles. You name it! Visit aosct.org for more info and a map of the area.

This year WindhamArts is running a promotion with participating locations. Get a pin by becoming a member of WindhamArts (for $20.00). When you wear your pin at the participating locations you are eligible for different discounts or raffles! Join now! Click here for more info. If you come wearing a pin to Artsake Gallery, Jennifer Hopkins will be raffling off a handmade bookmark!

So come visit me at Artsake Gallery. I will have NEW ART to show you! And as always, I will be selling prints of my artwork, and cards for the holidays.

I am showing with two other artists. Barbara Cambra is a textile artist who combines color and pattern to create unique usable art: table runners, lap quilts and wallhangings handquilted for adults and children. Jennifer Hopkins, owner of Artsake Gallery, creates handmade glass beads. You can purchase individual beads for your own creations or choose gifts of bookmarks, bracelets and necklaces. Lamp-work demonstrations on Sundays. <—These are a lot of fun to watch!

Artsake Gallery is located at 273 Tolland Stage Rd (corner of routes 74 & 30), Tolland, CT

AOSCT.org – for more info about the organization and other studios

Here’s one example of a new art piece I have to show you…

This is created in colored pencils and is 12.5″ x 15.5″. I think the title is going to be “Believe” but I’m not sure yet, if you have any ideas, please let me know!

Stephen Brown

There have been many art teachers in my life. The so-so teachers show you how to do it, the good teachers teach you how to be better, using what they know, but the great ones teach you how to see. Stephen Brown was one of those teachers. Stephen passed away on October 21 after a long battle with cancer. It’s hard to say he was one of the most talented teachers at the University of Hartford’s Art School, because they have so many talented teachers. But he was.

Stephen Brown taught painting. Oil painting to be specific. He was able to push and pull the medium and give a flat surface an enormous amount of depth. In his class we painted countless still-lifes, which I still have to this day, and he taught me that a white wall is far from plain white. He didn’t just say it, he had a way of making you see it. He gave many students that “aha!” moment, when they realize how to paint. And it wasn’t just realism either. Although his work is mainly realist portraits, still-lifes, and landscapes his teaching applied to abstract painting as well. It was about color and composition and movement and line and space and all the elements of design.

A few days after I found out about the news, I knew when the calling hours were and sadly I could not make it. But I was driving in the car at the time when I looked up at the sky I saw a cloud that personified the Stephen Brown that we all know and love. First of all most of the clouds in the sky seemed to be painted on – maybe that was his doing. This particular cloud was not in front of the sun but off to the side and had a rainbow in it. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but it reminded me of everything he taught. In one white cloud were all the colors of the world – you just have to open your eyes and see it. I tried to take a photo of it, but anyone who has been taught by Stephen Brown knows that a photo can’t compare to the beauty that came from his paintbrush. He was an amazing teacher and I am a better artist because of him, as are many who have attended the Hartford Art School. HAS will never be the same. His beauty and legacy lives on in his paintings. My condolences go out to his family in this difficult time. He will be missed.

For more information about Stephen Brown here is an article about the painter written by UNotes which is a University of Hartford news website.